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gardeningThis continues the tour of the Charleston Food Forest. (See Part 1: Right Front.)
This sign marks the crosne patch. Stachys affinis may be called crosne (pronounced "crone"), Chinese artichoke, knotroot, etc. I didn't recognize the name but I've seen those funny little spiral roots in catalogs. As it belongs to the mint family, it is best grown in containers to keep it from trying to take over the world.
This pawpaw tree is almost bare, but surrounded by blooming calendulas. I've been trying to grow one for ages, and so far the most I've managed is getting a couple to sprout. One this year made it to fall, so maybe it'll leaf out again in spring.
Calendulas are still blooming around the pawpaw trees.
These blanketflowers are still blooming.
This pawpaw tree has some leaves left. It's basically a tropical fruit adapted to temperate habitats.
Pear trees often have purple leaves in fall.
This sign marks a red currant bush.
This is one of several cherry trees. You can tell by the horizontally striped bark.
This sign marks the woodland strawberry patch, but they are on the ground, not that goumi bush behind the sign. This is one of several wild strawberry species and one that prefers some shade.
Strawberries form large mats across much of the food forest. If they like where you put them, most species will spread like crazy by sending out runners.
This is an apricot tree.
These are more of the giant marigolds. It's easier to see how big they are against the tree. This batch is between knee and hip height, and they're not even the tallest.
Groundnuts grow up the trellises. (It also works as a groundcover.) This was a major food for some Native American tribes, and the tubers can be enjoyed in many ways. As a member of the bean family, it fixes nitrogen. Does this count as Sister Bean for the purposes of a Three Sisters garden? Well, it climbs and it makes fertilizer, so I would say yes.
The path is mulched with woodchips. Bachelor's buttons are falling into the path. Actually, there's not a lot of clear path anywhere. It's not that the path is narrow, it's that plants are spilling all over it. You can get through, but need to watch your step.
Bachelor's buttons tend to start blooming in summer and may bloom well into fall. I think a few of mine may still be going.
Creeping thyme grows all around the welcome sign, and several other places. I kept thinking "What's that smell?" and looking down to realize that I was stepping on it. Although the sign says it's not edible, all thymes are edible; just this one has tiny leaves that are hard to pick off, and the flavor isn't as consistent as the culinary thymes.
The back of the welcome sign has harvest information for various crops. Like the large signs, it describes how to tell when something is ripe and how to harvest it. This forest garden is educational as well as edible, teaching people how to harvest produce, including a lot of things you can't buy in a typical grocery store. Try weird things! Eat your way to food sovereignty!
Did you know that humans have eaten 20,000–80,000 different plants? Can you imagine? So with our heavy reliance on just thirty plants we are relying on less than 0.1% of the diversity available to us. That is absolute insanity! How do we ever expect to keep a resilient food system with all the nutrients and phyto-chemicals we need within such poor biodiversity?
Of the 4 percent of the 250 000 to 300 000 known edible plant species, only 150 to 200 are used by humans. Only three -- rice, maize and wheat -- contribute nearly 60 percent of calories and proteins obtained by humans from plants.
Not all climate-resilient foods are new and unusual. Okra, mushrooms, sweet potatoes and pomegranates are all resilient choices in many regions. So, too are edible “weeds,” such as dandelion and burdock, which are hardy enough to survive our efforts to eliminate them. Yet as warming gets more extreme, researchers say we may have to adopt less familiar foods.
The right side has a space for Events, but it's currently empty.
This sign marks the crosne patch. Stachys affinis may be called crosne (pronounced "crone"), Chinese artichoke, knotroot, etc. I didn't recognize the name but I've seen those funny little spiral roots in catalogs. As it belongs to the mint family, it is best grown in containers to keep it from trying to take over the world.
This pawpaw tree is almost bare, but surrounded by blooming calendulas. I've been trying to grow one for ages, and so far the most I've managed is getting a couple to sprout. One this year made it to fall, so maybe it'll leaf out again in spring.
Calendulas are still blooming around the pawpaw trees.
These blanketflowers are still blooming.
This pawpaw tree has some leaves left. It's basically a tropical fruit adapted to temperate habitats.
Pear trees often have purple leaves in fall.
This sign marks a red currant bush.
This is one of several cherry trees. You can tell by the horizontally striped bark.
This sign marks the woodland strawberry patch, but they are on the ground, not that goumi bush behind the sign. This is one of several wild strawberry species and one that prefers some shade.
Strawberries form large mats across much of the food forest. If they like where you put them, most species will spread like crazy by sending out runners.
This is an apricot tree.
These are more of the giant marigolds. It's easier to see how big they are against the tree. This batch is between knee and hip height, and they're not even the tallest.
Groundnuts grow up the trellises. (It also works as a groundcover.) This was a major food for some Native American tribes, and the tubers can be enjoyed in many ways. As a member of the bean family, it fixes nitrogen. Does this count as Sister Bean for the purposes of a Three Sisters garden? Well, it climbs and it makes fertilizer, so I would say yes.
The path is mulched with woodchips. Bachelor's buttons are falling into the path. Actually, there's not a lot of clear path anywhere. It's not that the path is narrow, it's that plants are spilling all over it. You can get through, but need to watch your step.
Bachelor's buttons tend to start blooming in summer and may bloom well into fall. I think a few of mine may still be going.
Creeping thyme grows all around the welcome sign, and several other places. I kept thinking "What's that smell?" and looking down to realize that I was stepping on it. Although the sign says it's not edible, all thymes are edible; just this one has tiny leaves that are hard to pick off, and the flavor isn't as consistent as the culinary thymes.
The back of the welcome sign has harvest information for various crops. Like the large signs, it describes how to tell when something is ripe and how to harvest it. This forest garden is educational as well as edible, teaching people how to harvest produce, including a lot of things you can't buy in a typical grocery store. Try weird things! Eat your way to food sovereignty!
Did you know that humans have eaten 20,000–80,000 different plants? Can you imagine? So with our heavy reliance on just thirty plants we are relying on less than 0.1% of the diversity available to us. That is absolute insanity! How do we ever expect to keep a resilient food system with all the nutrients and phyto-chemicals we need within such poor biodiversity?
Of the 4 percent of the 250 000 to 300 000 known edible plant species, only 150 to 200 are used by humans. Only three -- rice, maize and wheat -- contribute nearly 60 percent of calories and proteins obtained by humans from plants.
Not all climate-resilient foods are new and unusual. Okra, mushrooms, sweet potatoes and pomegranates are all resilient choices in many regions. So, too are edible “weeds,” such as dandelion and burdock, which are hardy enough to survive our efforts to eliminate them. Yet as warming gets more extreme, researchers say we may have to adopt less familiar foods.
The right side has a space for Events, but it's currently empty.
